Red Berenson played his first hockey game against the Gophers in Minneapolis in February 1960. He was asked Thursday morning for a recollection of that visit.
"We were playing in that old barn across the street, of course," Berenson said. "And Minnesota was right up there at the top for us when it came to rivals."
The Michigan coach was sitting on a bench outside the locker room area at Mariucci Arena, the home for the Gophers since they moved across SE 4th Street in the fall of 1993.
Berenson took a sip from his Styrofoam cup of coffee, smiled and said:
"It was different hockey then. Mariucci was the coach and John was dead-set against Canadians. We later became friends, but what I remember is John hollering at me."
Go back to Canada? "Something like that … only more colorful," Berenson said.
Gordon "Red" Berenson of Regina, Saskatchewan, left Michigan in 1962 and went from there to play 1,072 NHL games (including playoffs) over 17 seasons.
He was in his second season with the expansion St. Louis Blues on Nov. 7, 1968, when he scored six goals at Philadelphia. Berenson and Toronto's Darryl Sittler (1976) remain the only NHLers since World War II to get six goals in a game.